Commercial vehicles, for example trucks, driving in a row can drive more efficiently as a result of using the slipstream or the shadow zone of a vehicle in front to reduce wind resistance. Controlling the vehicles driving in a so called platoon or convoy is typically done by a lead vehicle which wirelessly sends messages and commands over a vehicle-to-vehicle communication network to the other vehicles of the platoon—which may be referred to as the follower vehicles.
The follower vehicles and vehicles not participating in the platoon can send requests to the lead vehicle, e.g., requests to change a position within the platoon or requests to join the platoon, and the lead vehicle can agree to or reject the request depending on certain rules, e.g., rules based on vehicle equipment, etc.
The lead vehicle can also change a formation of the platoon, e.g., change a formation of the platoon in response to the geometry of the road to form a more efficient platoon. The platoon in these cases is always controlled by the lead vehicle. To join a platoon it is often necessary that each vehicle who wants to join has to have the same platooning equipment as the other vehicles as a result of a lack of standardization in vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Often an interne connection with cloud access is required to find a safe vehicle for platooning.
In U.S. Pat. No. 8,352,111 B2, a platoon vehicle management is described that allows for the formation of a platoon by assigning a lead vehicle to control an emerging platoon. The lead vehicle receives messages and commands, processes these messages and commands, and transmits appropriate answers to the follower vehicles to control their driving behavior while they are participants in the platoon.
In US 2013/0211624 A1, a platoon is described that is controlled by a lead vehicle, wherein the lead vehicle sends control commands, e.g. to adjust the speed, at certain control points. The control points are defined by a common time base valid for each vehicle. The lead vehicle can also determine following distances between the vehicles of the platoon, wherein the following distances are calculated in dependence on vehicle characteristics, e.g. a dynamic braking behavior.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,930,041 B1 describes a wireless safety device connected to a controller area network (CAN) bus of the vehicle to receive and send information. The safety device can use a vehicle-to-vehicle communication to send messages about certain events, e.g. safety events, to other vehicles, wherein the messages are extracted from the information transmitted over the CAN bus. This allows for warnings to be provided to the drivers of the vehicles if a safety condition is received from another vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,038 describes the possibility of wirelessly establishing a remote data link between a vehicle and an interrogation device, e.g. in an assembly line, in a freight or rental car return depot. Therefore a data bus of a vehicle is connected to a transceiver over a processor allowing for the exchange of messages with the interrogation device.